Cool, Calm, and Collected
by Llyn
Summary: When Taichi leaves on a two-month vacation, Yamato holds it together no problem. Just kidding. He's a hot mess. Lemon. Yaoi. Taito.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Digimon is not my property. Lemon. Yaoi. Taito.

* * *

 **Cool, Calm, and Collected**

* * *

Yamato knew enough about Taichi than to show him outright, like, _Hey Taichi, I got my nipples pierced. Wanna see?_ No, that wasn't going to happen because:

Number One: Taichi would touch them, immediately, because that was the goggle head's learning style. Touching. Poking. God forbid, pinching.

Number Two: If he touched them—and he would definitely touch them, if he didn't skip straight to the pinching—then that would send the wrong signals to Yamato's overcooked brain, keeping him up even later at night, writing even more pathetic song lyrics and causing even more angry cursing when he touched himself and saw only golden fucking Taichi, no matter how hard he tried not to.

Number Three: Wait. Fuck. God, did he just admit that? No, he did not. Yamato still remembered how it felt to be lonely in those long, dull years between the divorce and Taichi. He would never risk losing his best friend. Over what? Some clandestine nipple pinching? No way. Not after the summer he'd had.

There. Three perfectly good reasons not to tell Taichi about his pierced nipples, Yamato thought with satisfaction, expertly ignoring the voice in his head that wanted to hear more about this pinching business. Yamato _tsk_ ed at himself under his breath as he fixed his hair in the bathroom mirror with slender, slightly shaking fingers. It'd been two endless months since Taichi left for vacation with his family. No reason to ruin their reunion by blurting out secrets left and right.

No reason to tremble either, _God_ , _Yama, it's just Taichi_. Yamato knew he'd get his ear talked off anyway—talked off with every last possible mundane detail of the trip, like whether or not Taichi had gotten sand down his swim trunks and how much, not that Yamato thought about what was going on in Taichi's trunks but, that was just a random example, it wasn't that…no, there was nothing to read into there. Just aperfectly _random_ example of a typical conversation with Taichi: funny and weird but so, so pointless.

No, Yamato wouldn't get a chance to talk at all. He wouldn't even get a word in. Not that he ever had much to say to begin with. Anyway, the whole pierced nipples issue wouldn't come up. He didn't want it to.

Satisfied with his hair for the moment, Yamato trailed his hand down his chest to pinch his nipple, now stuck through with a silvery barbell, and let out a happy, scandalized little hum. Taichi would be rougher, he thought. Or gentler. He couldn't decide.

* * *

 **Two months earlier…**

* * *

Yamato stood, sleep-mussed and grumpy, in the doorway of the apartment he "shared" with his "father." He'd been living alone for a month or three with no end in sight. His dad had left in the night on a long-term assignment, forgetting to tell Yamato, who'd woken up the next morning, looked around, and sighed. It had been his birthday. Probably. In any case, there had been significant emotional scarring.

"Just had to say goodbye," Taichi said, shifting his weight where he stood in the hall. He couldn't hold still. Not _good_ can't hold still, like Taichi's-so-excited-cause-he-saw-a-big-lizard-sitting-on-a-rock-on-the-way-over, but _bad_ can't hold still, like Taichi's-terribly-depressed-and-is-afraid-of-what-will-happen-if-he-stops-moving-so-he's-gonna-do-handstand-pushups-in-your-living-room-until-he-breaks-something. There was a subtle difference.

Taichi swayed and frowned and picked at something on the wall and looked at Yamato, then looked away and frowned again and said, "The place we're staying is like, right on the beach but you can't bring phones, or sunscreen with chemicals in it, or like, bug spray that works. My mom's gone granola now, you know, all-natural, organic, tofu, vegan, yoga, rice cake…" Taichi trailed off, looking pale and shaken at the prospect, "So. I won't get to hear your v—um, so we can't talk. You know, while I'm gone."

Yamato knew. Taichi'd told him this before, in ominous tones, as if two months apart was some big deal. Still, Taichi had come to say goodbye, which was more than Yamato could expect from his own father, so he was determined behave himself and keep the attitude to a minimum. He stifled a yawn and sleepily followed Taichi's gaze down to the floor, where Taichi was toeing the weather strip with his sneaker. It was a terrifically stylish sneaker: fresh out the box and blue and hot orange and white and black with stripes and checks and logos. Yamato had to hand it to him—Taichi's sneaker game was always on point.

"Nice kicks," Yamato said, sticking out his bare foot to knock against Taichi's. Then a couple strange things happened all at once.

For example, Taichi kissed him.

Then, there was a clatter and a wheeze behind Yamato's back, and the window unit—the only one supplying clean, frosty air to the cramped apartment—broke.

Yamato, who had just opened his mouth to protest (which Taichi, whose mouth was pressed against Yamato's mouth at that moment, _completely_ misinterpreted), and who had just got his hands on Taichi's shoulders to violently push him away, turned to look.

Taichi was powerful in his way, or whatever. Great at breaking things from any distance. He could've done it from there. Or, at least, in that fuzzy instant, it _felt_ right to blame him.

"What'd you do that for?" Yamato asked, or, embarrassingly, whispered, because when he turned back around he realized he was still hanging onto Taichi's shoulders, and now their mouths were nearly where they were before, except now Taichi's hands were on his back, very low. It took a few seconds, but Yamato remembered to push him.

Taichi let go with a grin, grinning even though Yamato hadn't kissed him back, or asked to be kissed in the first place, or looked particularly kissable, considering it was noon, so he'd just woken up. His hair wasn't fixed. Yamato hadn't even shut his eyes for the kiss. You had to shut your eyes for a kiss to count. "Stop smiling at me," Yamato said.

Taichi didn't stop. Typical.

"What's wrong with you?" Yamato asked.

"I dunno," Taichi shrugged, still smiling, "The usual, I guess."

Then he'd shook his head in his affable way, like _Yama-you're-crazy_ , even though Taichi was the crazy one, kissing him like that when his hair wasn't even fixed.

And then he'd left.

* * *

 **Next up:** Part Two

 **A/N:** Please review/follow/favorite if you like it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Week One**

* * *

The first thing to change after Taichi left was the temperature inside the apartment. It began to climb.

How Yamato's ashtray of a dad, who worked 80 hours a week, couldn't afford a place with central air was beyond him. Part of the problem, Yamato could admit, was his own inflated allowance, which he justified to his dad in terms of grocery money. And it was mostly true. Yamato was a fixture at the farmer's market, Cleaver's Rare Meats, the docks (for the fresh seafood, not to ogle the…nevermind), Beau Fromage, and that new bakery, a couple blocks down. Sometimes he even went to the actual grocery store, but not the one near his place. They didn't carry fresh ginger.

The day Taichi left, he'd walked to the farmer's market on wobbly legs. So stupid, Yamato scolded himself, to be this distressed over a broken air conditioner. He'd call the building superintendent. It was a simple fix. A little extra heat was nothing to get dizzy over.

Usually, Taichi would be with him at the market. Now that they were out of school, it was something they did together on Tuesdays, sometimes Thursdays, and most Saturdays, too. Yamato went to buy ingredients. Taichi went to suck down hot tamales and slurp the frozen fruit pops. To pet all the dogs. To beg Yamato to make him whatever looked good, touching everything, fingers running over taut skins and bumpy rinds, slippery, sleek, plump, and rigid flesh in every color. His fresh sneakers, highlighter yellow, or red, white, and black, or sky blue fading to midnight with silvery fins, would wind through foot traffic, turn, get lost in the crowd. Then Taichi would reappear with a bar of chocolate, or three lemons, or half a dozen mismatched eggs, or a honeycomb in a jar, and hand these little things to Yamato, insisting they were _for_ him.

"For what? Yamato would say.

"For _you_ ," Taichi would say.

"For _what_?" Yamato would say. But he'd end up with his hand curled tight around a lemon, watching Taichi smirk away. What an idiot.

Without Taichi, Yamato was done at the market in ten minutes. The grapefruit lady asked where his friend was, giving him a pitying look when Yamato shrugged coolly in response. He didn't remember until he got home that he hated grapefruit, and only ever bought them for Taichi, who liked them with brown sugar on top.

As the week crawled by at an idle summer's pace and the temperature rose, Yamato, an old hand at loneliness, found he didn't miss Taichi at all. If anything it was a relief to be rid him.

Without Taichi hanging around, begging and pleading and crying and rolling on the floor for attention no matter how obviously busy Yamato was, he wrote at least a hundred songs, mostly about the moon. How the moon liked the sun, but was shy, so it ran. But it couldn't stay away either, so it went around and around the Earth, sometimes hiding from the sun, sometimes peeking out, sometimes getting as close as it dared. How the moon was jealous of the sun, wanted to be the sun. How the moon and the sun are together, but apart. How the moon glows because the sun shines on it. How the moon is a cold place, distant and alone. How everyone says the moon is beautiful but everyone really, you know, deep down, loves the sun more.

He practiced bass until his fingers were raw, then he switched to the harmonica until his gums got sore. He sang to himself. He drummed his palms on the desk. He filled up another notebook with his frantic chicken-scratch as the first light of the day fought its way through the blinds.

* * *

 **Week Two**

* * *

Yamato bent closer to the display at Cleaver's Rare Meats and called over his shoulder, "Taichi, come here." There was a fat hog's head behind the glass that Taichi would like to gawk at. Taichi liked big things. And gross things. You could even see the hog's nasty, pink tongue poking out. Yamato liked it too, could imagine serving it to an enemy with a table-shaking _plop_. He laughed out loud, waiting for Taichi to draw up beside him. Then he remembered that Taichi wasn't there. It was a small shop, but the butcher pretended not to hear him.

Yamato couldn't concentrate on his lyrics with that strange kerplonking sound interrupting his thoughts. He wrenched open his bedroom door, mouth open to tell Taichi _quit doing whatever you're doing and go to sleep_ , when he realized it was the icemaker going ker _plonk_ , ker _plonk_ , working on overdrive. Yamato'd scooped all the ice out earlier in the day, bagged it, and put it on his head in an attempt to cool down. It hadn't worked. He closed his mouth and shut his bedroom door.

Yamato called the superintendent three times with no answer. Then he called Taichi to complain. When it went straight to voicemail, he remembered Taichi didn't have his phone on vacation, but he listened to the message anyway. What a dumb voice, he thought, dialing the number again. "Hey, it's Taichi. Leave me a message," Yamato mimicked, rolling his eyes with a smile. He dialed the number again.

Yamato decided a little socializing wouldn't hurt him.

But his options were limited. Since he wasn't on speaking terms with the other members of the Teenage Wolves and since Koushiro and Jyou practically spoke a different language and since the girls were all intolerable and since Takeru was at basketball camp he decided to boost young Daisuke's self-esteem with a little one-on-one attention.

Daisuke was, personality-wise, half-Taichi and half-Yamato. The looks were all Taichi, or course, the bossiness, the jumping around, the tendency to shove a fist into the air and shout, "Let's go for it!" without a trace of sarcasm. However, despite these regrettable and generally embarrassing traits, Daisuke would occasionally raise a resentful shoulder and say, "Whatever," and look off into the distance with such glacial disaffection that it choked Yamato up, just to see it. Yamato cared very much for the Yamato side of Daisuke. He tried to nurture it whenever possible.

On their first day together, Daisuke coaxed him inside the Motomiyas' apartment much like you'd load a cat into a carrying case: there was pushing, and clawing, and yowling. No matter how many times Dai promised they'd be alone until five, Yamato still had to check all the closets and under the beds for Jun before he was satisfied.

Then they got down to making noodles. Yamato had limitless advice for Daisuke and his noodle-stand idea. He'd even spent the morning with his protégé at the farmer's market buying ingredients.

He felt vaguely guilty—it _was_ his and Taichi's thing, the market—but feelings of guilt only ever made Yamato feel defensive, which only made him more determined to do the thing making him feel guilty. So what if the grapefruit lady had given him a pinched smile and a rotten price when he'd shown up at her stall with Daisuke in tow. Yamato hated grapefruits, anyway.

Of course, with the Motomiyas' kitchen so full of steam that his shirt stuck to his back, Yamato regretted choosing to bond with Dai over noodles instead of something reasonable, like ice fishing.

Yamato was prone to self-sabotage.

"You like guys, right Daisuke?" he asked. He couldn't help himself. Since Taichi had…well, since the air conditioner had broken, he'd found himself thinking about these things. A lot.

Daisuke stopped stirring, "Guys?" he asked the wall behind the stove, wide-eyed, as if the wall had just said something crazy. He turned to face Yamato, giving him a careful look, "Yeah, I like guys. Guys, girls, _god_ ," he said, running a hand through his hair. Yamato didn't know if that meant he was into God, like _like_ -liked God, or if he was just rapturously overwhelmed by how much he liked everyone else. Quickly enough, Daisuke recovered his cat-with-cream grin, "Why do you ask, Ya-ma?" he leered.

"No reason," Yamato said, quickly turning back to his pot of noodles, not because it had nearly boiled over, which it had, or because leers had any effect on him, which they didn't, but because the close resemblance between Daisuke and Taichi was so weird and exciting. Not exciting, but, as if there were a lot of fireworks nearby about to go off. Like Taichi was _right there_ , implying things with a dirty grin on his face, saying _Guys? Yeah, guys,_ easy as you please. Yamato shook it off, "I just wanted to know so I can be on guard, you know, in case you try to slip me something."

"Yeah?" Daisuke asked, "That happen a lot?"

"Constantly," Yamato said, raising a resentful shoulder and staring morosely into the bubbling water. He hadn't meant to bring that up.

* * *

"So, can I use you to make Ken jealous?" Daisuke asked, on their second day. The kitchen heat had puffed out his hair in a pleasing way, Yamato thought, his own hair tied back in a stubby little ponytail that threatened to slip at any moment. After spending a day with him, or at least, the day until five, when Yamato had returned to his personal volcano to scratch out song lyrics and masturbate, Yamato had learned that Daisuke was really only a quarter part Yamato and a quarter part Taichi. The rest was all Daisuke—a guy Yamato didn't know half as well as Taichi or himself.

"No," Yamato said.

"Why not? You're using me."

"I'm _mentoring_ you," Yamato corrected, pointing a spoon at him, "I don't use people."

"You're not mentoring _shit_ ," Daisuke said, "You're just—"

"I'm mentoring a noisy little shit right now," Yamato shot back.

Daisuke set his jaw and glared. Yamato glared back. Daisuke glared some more. Yamato kept it up. Daisuke's pot started to boil over, hissing loudly. The heat behind his glare faltered, and he looked away.

"That's what I thought," Yamato said, immensely satisfied.

"Yeah," Daisuke said, mildly, as he stirred the pot, "But I already invited him over."

Yamato let out a whine not worthy of a self-possessed mentor and said, "Please don't make me hang out with Ken." Yamato would rather not see Ken, ever. He tried to avoid him, which was difficult, because he was shirtless on a billboard outside of Yamato's bedroom window.

"Just a _little_ jealousy," Daisuke pled, pinching his fingers to show just how little jealousy he needed Yamato to provide. There was a knock at the door. Yamato shrunk, irrationally, to hide behind Daisuke, who stepped easily away, "I mean, it's you, isn't it?" he asked, drifting backwards out of the room, "It will just happen naturally."

Yamato preened a little at that, tossing his shiny hair back, before he remembered it was tied up at the moment, "I _am_ good-looking," he said, "and talented," he thought about it and added, "I've heard."

Daisuke smiled at him, "I meant 'cause you're so prickly and defensive. But yeah, you look good, Yama," he said. His eyes darted down and then back, "You always look good."

"I'm not defensive, I'm just overall difficult," Yamato corrected, but Daisuke had already run off to answer the door. No one else was in the kitchen, but Yamato still preened some more.

Ken "The Rocket" Ichijouji could be called a stunner. That's what the fashion world thought, anyway. He was their shooting star, their gypsy-eyed sweetheart, the front man of haute couture. Good for him, or whatever. Yamato could've done it, too. He had the look. Everyone said so. But come on, modeling? Yamato considered himself more down to earth than that.

It was true though, that, if you weren't expecting him, Ken could knock you back a few feet with beauty and splendor. Yamato wasn't expecting him. He turned from the stove to get more paprika and was hit with a pair of dark, glittering eyes. "Woah," he said, and jumped back, rattling the pans on the stove.

"Hello, Yamato," Ken said, sweeping a curtain of silky smooth hair over his shoulder, iridescent as a raven's wing. He offered his hand for the secret handshake. Yamato was forced to, momentarily, acknowledge that they were on the same team.

"Hello, The Rocket," Yamato said, feeling a bit prickly and defensive and overall difficult as their palms slid apart and he got a good look at him. Ken was wearing tailored leopard print jeans and black leather boots that laced up to the knee, a steep v-neck, and a bracelet shaped like a snake that wound around and around and around his breakable little wrist, holding a glittering emerald stone between its fangs. Every last bit of it got under Yamato's skin.

"I thought you were going on tour with your band this summer?" Ken asked, in his too soft, too sweet voice.

"I was," Yamato said, crossly, "But now I'm not." It really was his least favorite subject. In fact, he refused to discuss or think about the Wolves a second longer. He narrowed his eyes at Ken, wondering if he'd heard some…some stupid, baseless rumor about what had happened. Then he remembered he wasn't going to think about that. Ever. "What about you?" he asked, eyeing Ken's outfit, "When does _your_ band start its tour?" His eyes got stuck on Ken's boots. They were cool.

Ken tilted his pretty head to the side, confused, but then the realization very attractively dawned as his eyebrows knit together in a pleasing way. Yamato was gonna puke from loveliness if he kept it up.

"Oh, this?" Ken plucked at his five hundred dollar shirt, probably made from the silk of a poisonous spider. His black v-neck cut four inches deeper than the black, cotton v-neck Yamato was wearing, which he'd bought for five dollars at a gas station after Taichi'd pushed him in the mud, "I just came from a shoot," Ken said, apologetically, "I wouldn't wear this in public, otherwise. But why aren't you on tour?" he asked, undaunted.

"Oh, you know," Yamato said with a shrug, "when I heard you and Dai have been hanging out unsupervised I cancelled right away and volunteered to chaperone."

Ken didn't laugh. Or blink, "You're funny."

"Do you think so?" Yamato asked.

"This is great," Daisuke said, from where he'd been leaning against the fridge, silent, "We should do this all the time."

* * *

"What kind of guys do you like?" Yamato asked Daisuke, on the third day, when they were alone.

"Um," Daisuke said, looking utterly dumbfounded for a moment, and giving the wall behind the stove another wide-eyed look, as if the wall was a street magician who'd just picked his pocket _and_ put a cigarette through a coin. With effort, Dai schooled his expression into something resembling indifference and flapped a hand, carelessly, "Oh, you know. Pretty boys," he said.

Yamato nodded. In his experience, everyone liked pretty boys.

"Someone I can toss around," Dai continued, bumping his shoulder against Yamato's. They were of a height, Daisuke having grown up rangier than Taichi, who was still all concentrated force and topiary hair.

Yamato caught his balance and shot a glare at Daisuke.

"Nervous flirts," Daisuke went on, "Who don't come out and say what's in their head. Even when it's obvious."

"What's obvious?" Yamato asked, blinking his big, blue eyes.

Daisuke smiled at him, canines flashing. "Switch with me," he said, and stepped back from the stove to let Yamato pass in front, with a hand very unnecessarily on Yamato's back, which set Yamato vibrating with that I'm-doing-something-wrong/no-I'm-not/fuck-you-I'll-do-it- _more_ feeling he got sometimes. The result was that he smiled shyly at Daisuke and Daisuke smiled back, letting his fingers trail slowly over Yamato's sweat soaked back before dropping away.

Yamato couldn't really figure Daisuke out. But it wasn't like he was _affecting_ Yamato or anything. After all, Daisuke was just a puppy. Yamato could handle him blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. He thought of handling Dai blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, or maybe up above his head.

He decided not to think about that anymore.

Dai was just a force of nature, that was all. A force of nature who kind of looked and sort of acted like Taichi. Sometimes.

Ken showed up wearing cropped pants that seemed to be made out of paisley sofa upholstery, a black and white striped shirt, and a comically large necklace of what must've been all the claws off the left, front paw of a saber-toothed tiger. Somehow, Yamato ended up serving the noodles, coming out of the kitchen with escaped strands of blond hair sticking to the sweat on his face to find Daisuke's lips at Ken's ear. He'd just whispered something. Ken blushed prettily, the picture of innocence and haute couture.

Daisuke was an asshole, was what he was.

* * *

Yamato didn't know why he came back, the fourth day.

"I thought you weren't coming back," Daisuke said, when he pulled open the door, "I was all broken up about it."

Yamato gave him a little shrug and a little smile and a little shoulder shove then walked past him and into the living room.

Dai couldn't have been all that broken up about it, since Ken was already there, on the couch, with his hair sticking up and tangled in the back, grinding his teeth so hard Yamato could hear the enamel crack.

But Yamato, who'd stormed out yesterday only to sit alone for hours in his sauna of an apartment, had had some sense cooked into him. Jealous of Daisuke and Ken? What bizarro world was he living in? He'd remembered in a late night epiphany that Daisuke had just wanted to make Ken jealous. It was Yamato's fault for forgetting.

"So what's for lunch, Rocket?" Yamato asked, feeling playful.

Ken goggled at him, one hand absently smoothing out his hair.

"Nothing," Daisuke laughed, "We starved, without you."

"Uh oh," Yamato addressed himself to Ken again, "Hope you already had your fill of whatever you usually eat. Plum blossoms. Rainwater."

Ken regained enough composure to shrug gracefully, "Close."

"Let me see if I can dredge up some rainwater for you," Yamato said, sugary sweet, intending to go find something nice to make him and Dai both, as a peace offering. Ken looked baffled, possibly scared. Yamato really was shit at sucking up.

He slipped away before he could embarrass himself further. Daisuke followed. Once they were alone in the kitchen, Yamato made a show of opening the pantry and poking around inside. "Ken seems jealous enough, Dai," he said softly, "We should stop."

"Stop what?" Daisuke asked.

Yamato wavered, "You said—you wanted—we were gonna make Ken jealous," he whispered, darting eyes toward the living room.

"Oh, I forgot about that," Daisuke said, drawing closer, "Is that what you've been doing?" He looked crestfallen. He glanced away from Yamato over at the wall that had been giving him such trouble lately, with his bottom lip pushed forward.

"No," Yamato said, quickly, "I…I kind of forgot about it, too."

Daisuke turned back from the wall to smile at him. Yamato was already cornered between the fridge and the pantry, but Daisuke reached a hand out to rest on the shelf, pinning him further. The fireworks were all lined up again, waiting for a spark.

"I have to go," Ken said, softly, from the doorway. He turned with a dazzling flash of blue-purple-black hair and was gone. Daisuke chased after him, leaving Yamato half in the pantry. By the time he caught up, peeking cautiously around a corner, the front door was open and Ken was on his way through.

"Wait!" Daisuke cried, "Just wait for like one second, okay?" he backed away slowly, hands spread, as if Ken might make a break for it, before turning and making a break for it himself, back into the kitchen. Ken and Yamato were left staring at each other in a less-than-friendly manner, though they were both too cultured than to actually growl out loud. Daisuke reappeared, stepping between them to press a jar into Ken's hand, "I keep forgetting to give this to you."

Ken, in his twelve hundred dollar shirt and his alligator belt, held the jar of blackberry jam from Daisuke's trip to the market like it was priceless. He didn't ask what it was _for_. He turned his heart-shaped face up at Daisuke with a worried frown, "Look, Dai, I don't know if I can come by tomorrow. My schedule…" Ken trailed off, gaze roving over Daisuke's face, looking earnest and sweet and vulnerable. Yamato watched skeptically, suspecting a trick, "I'll try, maybe later than usual? Or earlier?" The hand that held the blackberry jam curled against his heart.

Yamato got that guilty feeling he got sometimes. Then he got defensive. Then he felt more determined than ever. "Don't worry," he said to Ken, over Daisuke's shoulder, "We'll be here."

* * *

"You're really cool, Yama," Daisuke said, slowly, on the fifth day. It was raining gently outside, and the light all around them was soft and gray.

"I know," Yamato said, slowly. He couldn't remember exactly why they were sitting so close on the couch, or why they weren't cooking noodles, or why they were talking so slow. His face felt very red, but he didn't think Daisuke could see that in the gray dimness of the living room, since the lights weren't on. Yamato wasn't sure why the lights weren't on.

"Never thought I'd get to hang out with you so much," Daisuke said, eyes chocolaty and warm and close. Everything else had gone little out of focus and sideways for Yamato.

"Usually," Yamato wet his lips, "Usually I have Taichi."

"What do you and Taichi do?" Daisuke asked, slow and quiet, his eyes on Yamato's mouth.

There was a knock at the door. They flew apart. Yamato started adjusting couch cushions that didn't need adjusting. Daisuke leaned against the wall by the door with his eyes closed, breathing, and then he reached out to flip the lights on.

Ken came in wearing a fur coat, dotted with raindrops. He sat down across from Yamato. Daisuke sat next to him, cross-legged, looking mildly panicked. He avoided Yamato's eyes, and Ken's, too. He seemed hypnotized by a loose thread on the hem of his t-shirt.

"Seems kind of hot for fur," Yamato said, when no one spoke.

"Heat doesn't affect me," Ken said, casually.

Yamato scowled.

"Actually," he leaned in toward Yamato, looking smug, like he had a secret to tell, then stopped suddenly, and looked at Daisuke, "Actually, Dai, would you please get me a glass of water?" Ken asked. He waited for Daisuke to make scorch marks out of the room, and then turned back to Yamato to say, with that same, secret-telling smile, "It's wolf."

The blood drained out of Yamato's face.

"I had it made," Ken held out a slender arm, petting the fur backwards, "But it's shocking how quickly they finished, when I only asked for it earlier this week," he stopped petting to look up at Yamato, head tilted to the side, "I suppose the animal was local."

Ken smiled sweetly, dark eyes unblinking.

Yamato, understandably shaken, fled.

* * *

 **Week Three**

* * *

Chased like a man-eating beast back from whence he came, Yamato grudgingly resettled into life in his lava pit. Whatever.

Mostly, he spent the days not thinking about what'd happened in the hallway when the air conditioner broke.

He didn't think about it, because when he _did_ think about it, it didn't make any sense. He worked diligently to make sense of it, the why, why, and why-oh-why of it, without actually thinking about the moment itself, like how, in that moment that Yamato was not thinking about, Taichi'd smiled at him like he'd never done anything so reckless. He did not think about that reckless, knife-edge smile a lot, usually while languishing in the bath. The bath was where he—objectively, with cool disinterest—replayed and rewound the exchange in the hallway, looking for something he hadn't seen at the time, to explain why Taichi did the thing that he'd done.

After he stopped going over to Daisuke's, he stopped going to the farmer's market, too. There was no point, having no one to cook for but himself.

Instead, he languished. He languished on the balcony, where there was a chance of a breeze, with his arm dangling off the side and his face turned away from the billboard of Ken (whose smile now seemed especially menacing). He languished on his bed, sweating, with all the covers stripped off and a bag of ice on his forehead. He languished in lukewarm baths, for hours, not thinking of Taichi. Taichi on a beach. Taichi's lips, for a moment, when the air conditioning broke. He didn't think of these things.

Anyway, there was no reason to think about what had happened, because it had been an accident. Touchy-feely Taichi had accidentally touched Yamato plenty of times only to have Yamato shove him away. It was his learning style. And if it _was_ on purpose, how was this any different than Taichi putting an arm around the back of his seat at the cinema or blowing in his ear to wake him up in class or holding his hand while getting shot in the heart with an arrow? Those touches hadn't meant anything, either.

Yamato decided that, rather than waste his time trying to rationalize Taichi, he should just jerk off.

Lately he'd found solace in his imaginary friend—a nameless, formless, well-endowed friend who did all kinds of things with Yamato, like press himself against him from behind and nip at his ears. Yamato had stupidly sensitive ears, and his friend knew that, and knew that Yamato liked it rough, too.

Yamato had seen his first porn with two guys in it a few years ago, clicking on the video only after triple checking the lock on his bedroom door, even though he knew his dad was in Belize.

He'd liked it.

His friend had appeared shortly afterwards, and they'd had a great run together. But there'd been a disturbing development recently in their relationship that made Yamato want to scrap this ear-nibbling, rough-riding lover all together.

Because now, more often than he'd like, eyes closed, so close, as he imagined himself getting fucked up against, so close, a wall, fast and—ah!—rough, _so close_ , he'd catch, oh god, catch sight of, oh fuck, two sneakers, bright as a pair of tropical birds.

* * *

 **Next up:** Part Three

 **A/N:** Please review/follow/favorite if you like it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Digimon is not my property, and this work is not for profit. Yaoi. Taito. Lemon. Mature sexual content: Extremely dubious consent (non-graphic).

* * *

 **Week Four**

* * *

Yamato wasn't thinking clearly, the day he stumbled into the tattoo shop to get his nipples pierced. He'd been watching the same video on repeat for almost a week. It was one of those amateur videos, so short it was practically a gif, and as the one doing the fucking leaned in for a kiss—well, there was no sound—but Yamato could read his lips. _I love you_. He'd watched it so often, he'd even noticed the background. They were in the kitchen. They had the same knife set as him. And though the lighting was poor and the resolution worse, Yamato couldn't stop watching it. _I love you_. The skinny blond taking it wasn't so impressive, apart from his pierced nipples. But the top, there was something about him. _I love you_. Yamato hadn't considered, in his short time out of the closet, that he could have a boyfriend, and they could have a knife set, and there was just something about that guy—he was _smiling_ : fucking and grinning. He was the type to lean in close with a grin on his face and tell the guy he was fucking, _I love you_.

* * *

The piercer wasn't thrilled when he burst from the back room of the tattoo studio. His eager scan of the waiting room for the pair of tits he was scheduled to pierce yielded only Yamato, bouncing his knees with his sweating palms clamped together in his lap. The piercer frowned. Yamato gulped. But twenty minutes later, he walked out with two extremely angry nipples and a warning to watch out for seatbelts.

Looking at himself in the mirror replaced the video. Yamato couldn't stop. He felt special again, and also kind of stupid for feeling special over something so insignificant. For letting something so small cheer him up so much. He hadn't even realized he was depressed.

The truth was—it hurt, but—he wasn't famous anymore. Not like he'd been in high school. Not like Ken, who smirked at Yamato from his billboard. He hadn't moved out of his dad's or gone to college. The Teenage Wolves weren't teenaged anymore. They also weren't a band. It seemed like he'd never get his chance to be on a billboard, selling shirtlessness with _Yamato_ spelled out in looping ten-foot tall cursive. Not that he wanted that, exactly. But he could've settled for something similar.

* * *

 **Week Five**

* * *

On Monday, in an act of desperation, Yamato marched onto the Odaiba seashore and stabbed his umbrella into the sand beside the three bikini-clad girls laying on their stomachs in a neat row. He sat down in the safety of the shade, crossed his arms, and glared out across the water. He knew what he was in for.

"Yama's here," Miyako announced drowsily.

"How does he look?" Sora asked, not turning her head, though she was closest.

"Angry," Miyako answered.

"Must be here to ask one of us out," Sora guessed, airily, "Can't be me, I had my turn."

"Not it!" The other two called, but Mimi was too slow.

"Aw, I don't wanna date Yama," Mimi whined, flipping onto her back and regarding Yamato with a wary one-eyed squint before covering her face with a floppy brimmed hat, "He's too high maintenance," she said, voice muffled through the fabric.

"I'm not dating any of you," Yamato spat, and added, intelligently, "Ugh."

"Maybe he wants our company 'cause he misses his Taichi," Sora guessed, ignoring his outburst.

"Oh, Taichi, I miss you," Mimi cooed in a baby voice while Sora made kissy noises.

Miyako laughed loudly, frightening the nearby seagulls into a panicked flight, "Taichi and Yamato! Yeah, right."

Yamato plucked his umbrella from the sand and stormed away.

"We only tease you 'cause we love you," Sora called after him, her voice carrying in the wind.

* * *

He tried again on Tuesday. The girls picked on him, but at least there was a breeze by the sea. He laid back on his elbows in the shade of umbrella, idly scowling at every guy who rerouted to check out the T&A. If anything he was doing these bozos a favor. Yamato'd barely survived his tangle with a Chosen girl and one had been enough, forever. They were…tenacious.

"Stop scaring the guys away, Yama," Sora scolded.

"Don't need me for that," he said. Mimi cracked a grin as she flipped onto her stomach.

"He's probably drawing more in," Miyako said.

"Yeah, then they realize he's a guy," Mimi said.

"I don't look like a girl," Yamato said, sneering at a bro who was making his fourth lap past.

"Right, Yama," Mimi said, then sighed, "So many Chosen guys and every last one of them tragically un-dateable."

"The odds are astronomical—"

"Maybe you annoyed us away," Yamato said.

"Hikari got the only good one," Miyako muttered mutinously, as she straightened the corners of her towel.

"Could've at least gotten Taichi," Sora said, her eyes following the bro with interest on his fifth lap. Yamato redoubled his sneering efforts.

"Mm, yeah. Could've," Mimi said.

"Should've," Sora said, adjusting her top.

"Sweet as a puppy."

"Playful. Not so serious all the time," Sora sighed, "But no."

"Not with Yama beside him, ripe as a peach."

"I'm not _ripe_ as a _peach_."

"Of course not, sweetie," Mimi said, dissolving into giggles along with Miyako. Sora had her face hidden in her straw hat, shoulders shaking.

"Why do we tease Yama like this?" Miyako snickered, wiping her eyes.

"Because you love me," he muttered, stalking away.

* * *

If Yamato stayed in one place long enough, eventually someone would ask him out. That wasn't narcissism, either—it was just a fact. So it wasn't much of a surprise on Wednesday, when a guy walked up and peeked under his umbrella, even if it was, in Yamato's opinion, rude. He was shirtless and barefoot. His friends were waiting along the way, nudging each other like idiots. Then Yamato realized they _were_ idiots. They were members of Taichi's soccer team.

"Hey, Yamato," the guy said.

"Hey…" Yamato searched his memory of Taichi's games, "Number Ten."

"Haru," Number Ten said.

"Haru," Yamato said.

"Hey," Haru said, softer.

"Of course," Sora huffed.

"I wondered," Haru's eyes flicked to the row of girls to his right, then back to Yamato, "You, know, since Yagami's out of town…if I could take you sometime?"

"Why since Yagami's out of town?" Yamato asked, ignoring the rest.

"I mean," Haru looked bashful, rubbing the back of his neck. Yamato couldn't imagine who he'd picked that up from, "To be honest, he said he'd beat me with his cleats if I ever talked to you."

"Oh," Yamato said, reconsidering. A rebel. He was pretty hot, actually, had that stupid-hard body one got from chasing Taichi around the pitch. He smirked, "And do you always do what he tells you?"

"Usually," Haru shrugged, "But, you know…" He eyed Yamato up like a seven-layer cake, expression going dark and hungry, then seemed to shake himself out of it to ask, "Why? Don't you do what Taichi says?"

" _No_ ," Yamato spat, then looked at the girls for backup, openmouthed, but they were all staring back at him like he was an idiot.

"So…" Haru said.

"Oh, right," Yamato remembered the scene playing out in front of him. The ask-Yamato-out scenario. Girls usually had a rough time of it, dissolving into giggles or turning red as a radish. Straight guys didn't ask him out at all, of course. But sometimes they stared. A lot. Women were the worst—handsy and overbold—stuffing their numbers right into his back pockets with lingering touches that made _him_ turn radish red. And gay guys, of course. Yamato couldn't walk through the park without dudes flashing their headlights at him. What did that mean, exactly? Was he just supposed to get in? But then what? Yamato remembered, again, that Haru was standing in front of him, waiting. "No," he said, shaking his head. He used to add _sorry_ at the end of his rejections, but he'd never really meant it.

"Look at that poor boy," Sora lamented, as they watched Haru skulk away, head hung, "What was so wrong with him that you couldn't just let him take you out once?"

"What _wasn't_ wrong with him?" Yamato asked, "Like I'd ever date a _stranger_."

"Strangers stay strangers if you refuse to even meet them," Sora said.

"Whatever," Yamato picked up a handful of sand and threw it toward the water. It wasn't very satisfying.

"Drama Yama," Mimi whispered.

"Goddamnit," Yamato said.

"Ice Prince Yama," Mimi tutted.

"Too good Yama," Miyako said, yawning.

"Never been touched."

"Yes, I have," Yamato said.

"Never been kissed," Sora said, mournfully.

"I kissed _you_ ," Yamato blew his fringe from his face, "Unfortunately."

"Yeah, but that's _all_ we did."

"Oh, God, are you a _virgin_?" Mimi asked.

"No!"

"God, you are!"

"No, I'm not!"

"I bet you haven't even kissed Taichi," Sora said.

"Yes, I have!" Yamato said. Then his eyes went wide.

Silence reigned on the beach. Yamato blushed furiously at the waves.

"Could you tell us about it?" Mimi asked, after awhile, "In detail?"

* * *

Because he'd refused to spill the details of Taichi's kiss—it had been an accident, anyway, there was nothing to tell—Mimi was back on the virgin thing like a dog with a bone before Yamato could even stick his umbrella in the ground on Thursday.

"So tell us more about how you're a virgin saving yourself for Taichi," she said past her own laughter.

"Jesus, Mimi," Sora said, shaking her head.

"I'm not," Yamato said, "I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not—"

"Who'd you do it with, then?" she asked, loudly, to be heard over his chanting.

"My _band_ ," Yamato said, with relish, knowing it would shut her down.

He was right. Mimi's mouth hung open. He smiled back, smug.

"Really?" Miyako asked, "All of them?"

"Pretty much," Yamato shrugged like it was no big deal.

"But like, how?"

"It was easy," Yamato said.

They just kept staring.

"Y'know," he made a big show of stretching, like it wasn't even an interesting story, "usually there's girls around after a show, but this time it was just us back at the hotel, in my room. And we'd been drinking a lot that day. Since before the show started. I mean, that's the secret to these kind of things, right? Being totally wasted?"

Mimi grinned like she knew it was true.

"But, I dunno, I was starting to feel kind of dizzy. It just kind of hit me all at once, so I sat down on the couch—I always got the best room, everyone else had to share—and Yutaka sat down next to me and took the drink from my hand and said I'd be okay. Then he kissed my forehead and my cheek and then he tilted my head up and kissed me for real. And I kissed back. I mean, I liked him. I'd kind of been flirting with him for weeks. Like, just as a joke, to pass the time. But it was fun. Then we started making out. And," Yamato hugged himself, though it was hot as ever on the beach, "I felt like I was burning up. I couldn't really get my eyes to focus, so I leaned away from him, but Soshi was there, sitting behind me. I don't really know where Nari went…

"Anyway, I told Soshi I was hot and he said, _Take your clothes off, then_ , and started to pull off my shirt and—I liked Soshi too, Soshi's cute—and, for this weird moment I could see perfectly straight, and I looked up at Yutaka but he was looking over my shoulder at Soshi, and he said, _It's not gay if it's Yama_. Remember when people used to say that?" Yamato asked, with a little laugh. It'd been a joke in high school, but when he turned to the girls they weren't smiling.

"Um, anyway," Yama said, swallowing. He plucked at the corner of his towel, "They laughed about it, and I laughed, too. And then we, um," he looked over at Mimi, into her pretty face, but her fine brows were drawn down low. He shrugged, "I'm not a virgin. It was Yutaka and Soshi. I just can't...exactly…" Yamato watched the glitter of tears rise in Mimi's eyes and looked away. He shouldn't have told, "remember." Suddenly he wanted very badly to be somewhere else.

"Oh, Yamato," Sora said, sounding gutted. Yamato refused to look over and see her pitying him. Angry, he stood up abruptly, ignoring the swimming stars in his vision and yanked his umbrella up from where it still sat, abandoned on its side in the sand.

"Sweetheart," Mimi said, scrambling to her feet, but Yamato took off across the beach before she could reach him. Marching, head down, he ignored their calls. Their voices blended with the cries of the seagulls. He tried not to let himself remember. But it was pointless, because there was so much more.

They'd been rough with him. Especially Yutaka, who'd called him names. And he did remember where Nari was, how he'd walked in from buying cigarettes while Soshi had Yamato bent over the arm of the couch. How Yutaka had laughed and told him, "Go on, take your turn." How he hadn't seen Nari since. Of course, he hadn't seen Soshi or Yutaka since, either. He'd woken up alone. The room was trashed. Yamato was trashed. Everything hurt. Not just his ass or his head but his mouth and his heart and his eyes and his stomach. Everything, inside and out and abstract and concrete that made him Yamato had hurt that morning. He found little white fragments at the bottom of his half-drunk beer. They weren't capable of this. They were his band. He'd met them in music class when he was thirteen.

He'd spent the next night and day and night and morning crying quietly in a heap in Taichi's living room while the Yagami family went on with their lives around him. Hikari'd left a little cup of water near him, like Yamato used to do as a kid, when he'd hear a thud and find a songbird sitting frozen on the balcony, stunned after hitting the glass doors.

This went on until—with his parents at work and Hikari at school—Taichi'd invented a game where he tried to hit Yama with bottle caps flicked from increasingly difficult distances. After the third ricochet of a cap off his skull and Taichi's victorious, "Yes!" Yamato had lifted his face from the couch cushion to glare.

Taichi'd grinned back, unrepentant, "I'm hungry."

"Of course," Yamato had said, but he stretched and rose and made his way into the kitchen, rubbing at his raw eyes while he scoped out the fridge. He'd made them baked macaroni and goat cheese with spinach and bacon and plum tomatoes while Taichi'd leaned against the counter beside him and hypothesized at great length the possibility that the Digital World was flat and proposed that he, Yamato, Agumon, and Gabumon should pile into Yamato's swan boat and _find out_.

He'd seemed seconds away from pumping a fist into the air and shouting _Let's go for it_ , when Yamato interrupted him, "So, you think it's a good idea to paddle the swan boat over the edge of the world?"

"With you, yeah," Taichi'd said, stealing a slice of tomato off the cutting board, "What's the worst that could happen?"

Yamato had smiled through his puffy eyes. He picked at the oven mitt for a minute and said, "I think my band broke up."

"Oh. Well, that's okay. I mean, you guys kind of sucked."

Yamato had laughed, surprising himself with the sound, "Yeah, we did. I have no idea why we were ever popular."

"Sure, Yama, of course you don't," Taichi'd said, rolling his eyes, and something deep inside of Yamato that had gone out relit.

* * *

The girls were talking as Yamato approached them on Friday.

"That's a good program."

"I'd love to go, it's just they only accept a few new students a year."

"Have some faith, Miyako, nobody knows their stuff like you."

"Koushiro was telling me about…" Miyako fell silent as Yamato drew up beside them.

"Hey," he said.

They didn't say anything. He set up his umbrella to the sound of the waves and settled down in its shade. Good thing he was so averse to tanning. He couldn't imagine what the girls would say if they saw his piercings.

"So, what program?" he asked, eventually.

Miyako seemed to let out a breath, "The recording engineer program, at Tokyo School of Music," she said, then gasped and clamped her hands over her mouth, like she'd said a bad word.

"Oh," Yamato said, "That's cool."

"Yeah?" Miyako asked, as red-faced and shy as a girl about to ask him out.

"Yeah," Yamato said, "I mean, you were always great, y'know, when you helped out," he swallowed, pushing through it, "with the band."

"Yeah," Miyako said, smiling at him, "Thanks."

The group lapsed back into silence.

Yamato'd had a rough night, alone in the apartment. But he'd made it through. He'd found that, once out, the truth about the Wolves refused to be crammed back into the corner of his mind where he'd been keeping it stored. That was alright, it gave him more space to not think of Taichi, and the thing he'd done in the hallway when the air conditioner broke. It was a much nicer thing to not think about.

"I was thinking," Yamato said, leaning back on his hands, "Maybe one of you could cut off my hair."

He'd never seen them move so fast.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Miyako said, latching onto one arm.

"You _can't_ ," Sora tugged on the other, "It looks so _good_."

Cursing, Yamato wrestled free of them both, scrambling to his feet to escape. But as he smoothed out his clothes and precious hair, ignoring Miyako and Sora as they hugged each other and wailed, he noticed Mimi still on her towel, studying him with her head tilted to the side.

"Mimi?" he asked her.

She chewed her glossy lip for a long minute, "Okay," she said.

"Good," Yamato said, "I brought scissors."

It felt so good to be touched again.

"So how short?" Mimi asked, stroking her fingers through Yamato's hair. He'd resettled in his umbrella shade, with Mimi kneeling behind him. Her touch, as she sifted through the layers, was gentle and soothing, and Yamato felt himself relax. Mimi wouldn't hurt him, for all her taunting. "Yama?" She asked, and yanked a handful. His eyes flew open, "How short?"

"Off my neck at the least. My apartment's a fucking furnace," he said.

Miyako whined in the back of her throat. Sora hid her face in her hand.

"Sora," Yamato scolded, "Pull yourself together."

" _You're_ telling _me_ to pull myself together?" Sora asked, but it worked. She sat up straight and gave Yamato a what-the-hell smile, "You know what? You're right. I'm sure you'll be gorgeous as ever," she pumped her fist into the air, "Go for it."

Yamato rolled his eyes.

"With short hair," Miyako said, disbelieving, "As gorgeous as Ken?"

"Please, please, please," Yamato said, glaring at her, " _Please_ don't talk about Ken."

"What about Taichi?" Sora teased, "Can we talk about him?"

"You're all the worst," Yamato said, smiling.

"We only tease you cause we love you," Mimi said, then made the first cut.

* * *

 **Next up:** Part Four

 **A/N:** Please review/follow/favorite if you liked it! I love comments!


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